The present disclosure relates to vehicle members, and particularly to a vehicle member suitable for, for example, an ornament of an automobile.
Recent vehicles (e.g., automobiles) are equipped with various radar systems in order to enhance safety and convenience. An example of such radar systems is a radar cruise control. A radar cruise control is a system that recognizes a speed difference and a following distance from a preceding vehicle by applying millimeter radar waves forward of the user's vehicle from a radar sensor and receiving reflected waves from the preceding vehicle so as to automatically control a travel speed of the user's vehicle.
The radar sensor is disposed at a center of a front face of the user's vehicle in consideration of directivity of the radar, especially is hidden at an inconspicuous place such as at the back of a front grille. At the center of the front face of the vehicle, however, an ornament or a front emblem indicating, for example, a corporate identity (CI) mark is often disposed. Thus, the radar sensor and the ornament overlap each other so that the surface of the radar sensor that radiates electric waves might be covered with the ornament.
The ornament is made of a metal or a material having a metallic luster in consideration of design. Ornaments using, for example, stainless steel or nickel plating, however, absorbs and diffuses electric waves incident and radiated on/from the radar sensor so that the electric waves are weakened. To solve the problem, proposed is an ornament having a metallic luster and high transmittance to electric waves by vapor-depositing indium (In) over the surface of a nonmetallic material forming a CI mark (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-273216).
Since indium is an expensive rare metal, the use of indium for an ornament increases costs for the ornament. In addition, indium has a white-silver metallic luster, and it is difficult to adjust the color tone of the white-silver metallic luster to darker or lighter. For these reasons, an ornament using indium has a monotonous color tone and has a difficulty in obtaining desired design.